


Day One

by NAMAE



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Everyone is Dead, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not really but kind of?, Time Loop, guilted into sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NAMAE/pseuds/NAMAE
Summary: And this is what Chanyeol hates. This is the climax. The part that —and it's seven-twenty-one now— and he has precisely three minutes until he leaves him again. One hundred and eighty seconds until they both go down because, fuck, Jongin is leaving and Chanyeol hasn't seen the sky inmonths.





	Day One

**Author's Note:**

> Oh wow this is shit but if you actually read it? Thank you.
> 
> I'm a terrible person and there might be typos if there are omg i'm sorry

This is a new day. An exhausted place with scenery spoiled by events, and he's patiently waiting for it all to combust in an arc of words and drunken engagements until it's evaporated over time and no one's left here but him. He knows it's coming. The clock on the wall, still running, says so. It's ten-fifty-eight. 

 

The scene is a seemingly odd room in the basement of some big city dome where they should've performed two months ago—or just three weeks ago—he’s not really sure how this works. Rubbish and untouched phones and far too much space for just two people. It gives off the same vibe as that bar in Miari, the one where Baekhyun was solicited from the shadows. Of course that was ages ago; an event that had been laughed off in the safety of the dorm. Unlike then, this room's absence is only intensified by the glow from the strung up flashlights, the way the beams don't touch the shadows and the emptiness of where  _ someone should be _ . There's the twang-twang-twink of his guitar as someone else plays, and he taps his pencil along the end table. Soju on the edge. 

 

It's details like this that make strange happenings feel like home to Chanyeol, that make him relax at the places where the other seven should be. Jongdae in the corner. Junmyeon hovering by the mirror. Minseok tying his shoes. And so on. 

 

All the details are set.  _ Twang-twang-thung. _ The pencil is tapping in his hand. The world is radiating and the power’s long been out. Three of the five flashlights that Sehun had strung up have went black, and today, he knows the fourth will go out, too; the filament has almost burnt out.

 

Then, the crash and thrum of pulled strings. It's the guitar. Just like always at eleven o’three and then the curse that follows to the exact second and the exact tone. In ten seconds, Jongin will fill in the reverberating silence, and he's right on time.

 

If  _ he _ were part of this elaborate screenplay,  _ he _ would be the first to speak, Chanyeol is sure, but  _ he _ isn't, so Jongin fills in for him. “Any news?”

 

It's a silly question, a stupid one they both knew because he's both been here the entire time and not a single speck of information had hit Chanyeol that didn't hit him as well. Of course, this was Chanyeol’s cue to shake his head as he always does at the exact same time each day to the exact same question about the exact same radiation. It's been months since he's seen the sky. 

 

Just like Chanyeol knew he would, Jongin frowns and mutters, “This is getting ridiculous.”

 

_ He  _ would agree, were  _ he _ here. But  _ he _ escaped this hell months ago, with Dae and Sehunnie tripping at his heels precisely one month ago. And every once in awhile, Chanyeol will see a flash of them in his head, something that doesn't already come on schedule, something that keeps him sane. Banter here, a smile there, a laugh echoing from long, long ago. They haven't come back, but Chanyeol was still left. “I know,” he said.

 

Jongin kicks a bottle—as each day—and Chanyeol wonders, as always, how  _ does  _ it end up back where it was the moment before he kicked it. Nothing ever offers answers, so he just always waits for him. He waits for him with knots in his stomach. He waits for him to say, “What an awful place to be stuck...” And then Jongin pauses, a soft, “I wish Kyungsoo were here….”

 

And Jongin 's mentioned  _ him _ which means it's his cue to start sobbing because  _ he  _ was the best friend and what can Chanyeol do but sit there as Jongin clutches the guitar that isn't his and watch him fall apart? This, of course, isn't part of the script, so instead Chanyeol stands up, drapes lanky arms around the other male, and buries his head in the crease of Jongin’s neck as Jongin wails for  _ him _ . He's screaming like always and Chanyeol wants to confess that he's not the only person that lost someone. But on day one, Chanyeol hadn't wanted to bring up Baekhyun. He hadn't wanted to remember his smiling face as the elder said, “I'll be back before you know it.” He didn't want to remember the way he'd wink at him, the way Yixing had pulled out a jumble of cards directly after and offered a game that Chanyeol’d taken, smiling. On day one, he didn't want to think about Baekhyun, and on day one he certainly didn't expect losing Jongin as well. How could he have?

 

So he did now as he did then. He listens to Jongin. Always the same words about how angry he is that  _ he _ walked out of the room, the way  _ he  _ had promised to come back (he remembered, “I won't be like Baekhyunnie. I won't get lost.”  _ He  _ wouldn't look at Chanyeol when  _ he'd  _ said that). Then, Jongin will give the same half-hearted cry that he hates  _ him _ . The one that always leaves him apologizing and crying even more. 

 

Of course, it's eleven thirty-seven now and Jongin's reached for the alcohol and starts swallowing the liquor that always replenishes itself each day to the exact volume it was before he'd even tasted the first shot. By twelve-twenty-three, he's begging, “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.” And, damn, the boy won't shut up so of course Chanyeol agrees. 

 

On day one, Jongin had been fucked out of his mind. Had had liquor running through his veins that beat his blood to his joints and fingers that had grabbed at Chanyeol's shirt and hair and skin. 

 

He does it now, too. 

 

On day one, it had all been substitutes, each thinking the other was someone they weren't. It hadn't worked for Chanyeol. Everything was off. Wrong. Until halfway through, he'd come to terms with just Jongin and it wasn't ideal, but it wasn’t terrible. Now, Chanyeol thinks that he wishes he'd been more desperate, better. He wishes he'd performed so well that Jongin could have felt the way his love and regret twist and grows on each repeat. 

 

Jongin had been different. On day one, his only thoughts had been of lust and distraction and when he'd come down from his high, he'd clutched Chanyeol because the couch they'd fucked on was too small and they both barely fit. 

 

Nothing has changed since then. 

 

Chanyeol doesn't have to look at the phone screen—the last phone still with battery—on the table to know it's twelve-fifty-eight. They always finish at this time. Jongin always passes out at this time. The routine has become mundane and unexciting, and Chanyeol thinks there's something weary about having someone that wishes you were someone else everyday. 

 

At exactly six-thirty-seven, Jongin will groan and curl his fingers against Chanyeol's side, lightly scratching the skin. At seven-seven, Jongin will clamber off, untangling himself from long limbs and boney knees. He will awkwardly pull on his clothes as Chanyeol pretends to be asleep, and he'll moan to himself—something about a headache, but make a beeline for the soju anyways. 

 

Chanyeol always approximates that this is around the time that Jongin would wipe his eyes, smearing tears and weeks old (months old?) eyeliner in one streak. Of course, Chanyeol isn't completely sure. He's still feigning sleep until—.

 

He opens his eyes. As always, it just in time to watch Jongin shove a piece of hair behind his ears. 

 

Jongin sniffles, and Chanyeol sees the smeared make-up that he'd always been so fervent to wear. It's seven-thirteen. Jongin opens his mouth, and just as always, Chanyeol interrupts him.  “What are you doing?” He asks. Chanyeol knows what he'll say before he says it. He knows the exact way he'll look away and play with his hands. He knows everything he will do this day by heart; it's happened so many times before. 

 

The flashlight above them, the dim one that Sehun had found in some utility closet, fizzes out and they're only left in bleak lightening that enunciates the circles under both their eyes. Chanyeol knew that would happen too. 

 

He knew he would look up and blink in confusion, because that had happened on day one when a new day was really a new day and hope was still clinging to Chanyeol's mind. Now, hope was a cobweb tucked somewhere behind his eyes. 

 

While he blinks at the dead flashlight, he wants to say, “Stop.” He wants the chance again to alter his future. He wants the chance to wake up to something new. And that, even though it is a new thought diverging from day one, even it has become something of routine. 

 

“Chanyeol, I—” Jongin chokes out the words and even the first time he'd said them, the original time, Chanyeol had understood in advance what he was about to say. Jongin's eyes flash to determination. Then to pleading. “I'm leaving.”

 

What he's really saying, Chanyeol knows, is difficult to swallow, and on the third and fourth and tenth repeat, Chanyeol had wished he'd downed soju, too. To maybe dim the memories of what had happened and make the fifth and fifteenth go round easier. 

 

It doesn't get easier. Jongin says he's given up, he's converted to nihilism in two short words, three syllables. 

 

And this is what Chanyeol hates. This is the climax. The part that —and it's seven-twenty-one now— and he has precisely three minutes until he leaves him again. One hundred and eighty seconds until they both go down because, fuck, Jongin is leaving and Chanyeol hasn't seen the sky in  _ months _ . 

 

Chanyeol shakes his head. It's his cue. And Jongin's, with a weak, “Please.” His voice is choked up and Chanyeol reminds himself that they'd used to be friends. Despite that this is the umpteenth cycle, he always reminds himself. Chanyeol always thinks about the first day they'd been left alone—the last two—three weeks? before day one. He reminds himself of how Jongin had smiled and thrown down his hand of cards with a smirk, as if he'd won fairly instead of bullshitted his way through a game. He reminds himself of the way they’d shared a bar of chocolate crammed into a random drawer. Then, Chanyeol always makes himself remember further, before the government had announced everyone to stay inside until further notice. Before everyone got tired and walked out. Before the loop started. 

 

“You can't leave me.” Chanyeol's comment goes unheard. “I don't want to die.” On day one, he'd felt that was true, but now on day one to the umpteenth degree, he thinks it might've been untrue. He wonders if walking out would've prevented the repetition, if the loop would've formed at all. 

 

“Don't do this,” Chanyeol says, but he knows Jongin will, even before he walks forward and tries to grab his hand. It does no good. 

 

Jongin is already off, stumbling down the dark corridor of some basement city dome where Sehun couldn't find enough lights to donate. Chanyeol and Jongin know it from touch, from counting steps, from the precarious trips to the restroom just to piss and, fuck it, Chanyeol is begging. 

 

“You can't do this, Jongin, you can't just  _ leave _ . I'll do  _ anything _ , but you can't just—”

 

They're at the door. Chanyeol knows it because the door is the only place where hazy, natural light bleeds in from a thin window. It's the only door in the basement that leads directly to the outside. The only door that no one has returned from. 

 

Chanyeol has roughly thirty seconds left with this nihilistic boy, so eager to die and so he tries again. It's pathetic, Chanyeol thinks now, that he couldn't see it all coming. Regrets that he hadn't stopped Minseok when he'd left first. “You owe it to me to stay alive.”

 

It was both low blow and a lie; at the time of its original utterance, Chanyeol believed it to be true. Felt it deep in his heart that if Jongin did this, he would be over. They would all be over. He thought they ghosts in the room in the basement under the dome would all but disappear. And then what? 

 

But even on this loop, Chanyeol still can’t decide if Jongin’s next words are true. If they’re the reason for all of this. He can’t decide if he should blame Jongin, or not. He doesn’t know how to take it. 

 

Jongin smiles at him, hand on the metal handle, and says, “I’ll come back.” He says that he’ll come back with them all. He says that he’ll find Baekhyun. It was a punch to the gut on day one. A cut that left Chanyeol silent when he should’ve been vocal. “You’ll be fine until then, Yeollie.” 

 

On day one, Chanyeol had suddenly cursed at the nickname, had broke and spat and cursed Jongin and the others and especially Baekhyun. He does it now, too. It’s etched into his being, but he doesn’t mean it. He prays as he does it. Hopes that the others would’ve understood thtat he was hurt, that he was at the end of his rope and he wonders if Jongin does the same when his mouth curses Kyungsoo at the beginning of the loop. 

 

He hears Jongin say, “You’ll be fine, everything will be fine,” more than he sees it; on day one, he’d forced his eyes shut in anger, in humiliation that he was the last. He feels hands card through his hair, hears the door open and shut. It’s no surprise when Chanyeol feels the cool concrete against his back as he slides to his ass. On day one, Chanyeol hadn’t known how long he’d sat there, but since the loop, he’s had the time to count one-hundred-thirty-two seconds. 

 

It takes him another two minutes to stumble back to the room, feeling the smooth walls against his fingertips. It’s seven-twenty nine when Chanyeol finally returns to the room and sits on the couch. It’s seven-thirty-one when he finally gives up on just looking at the liquor and when he finally downs two mouthfuls. Chanyeol knows the bitter taste of it, is familiar with the way it makes his tongue feel thick. On day one, Chanyeol had being trying not to think, but the liquor doesn’t work on the loops and he mainly spends the moments thinking of ways that he could’ve prevented it. He doesn’t get very far. Chanyeol falls asleep. 

 

When he wakes up, he’s already sitting up. The liquor is full, there is a pencil tapping in his hand, and he hears the crash and thrum of pulled guitar strings. The curse word that follows. 

Ten seconds later, Jongin asks, “Any news?” Jongin knows exactly what Chanyeol will do, but it’s Chanyeol’s cue. Chanyeol shakes his head as he always does at that exact same time each day to the exact same question on the exact same radiation. It’s been years since he’s seen the sky. 

 

Just like Chanyeol knew he would, Jongin frowns and mutters, “This is getting ridiculous.”

 

They both know Jongin is no longer speaking of the radiation.


End file.
